- So what is death wobble, exactly?
Well, if you've experienced it before, you already know.
You get the violent shake in the steering wheel,
the vehicle just goes side to side,
everything's all shaking apart, coming loose,
and you feel like you're gonna crash and go off the road.
Well, that's death wobble.
What happens is the tire start fighting each other.
It starts messing with the steering
and it starts osculating back and forth,
and it transfers up all the way through the steering wheel
and its violent shake of the steering wheel.
And it can be quite scary, especially at highway speeds.
But when you upgrade your wheels and tires,
especially to bigger tires,
the first first thing you need to do
is obviously an alignment,
not only to help the tires last longer,
but it does also, a bad alignment
can also contribute to death wobble.
If you have the tires,
if they're towed in too far or out boarded too far,
they can start fighting each other
when you're going down the road.
And that can build that momentum
and that's what can cause death wobble.
So the first thing to do,
get an alignment when you get new tires,
the second thing, if you do experience death wobble,
then the second thing to check for
is your bushings throughout.
So when I say throughout, I mean your tie rod bushings,
you're drag link bushings,
your upper control arm bushings, your track arm bushings.
So if you have anything loose in any one of those bushings
or anything that's controlling the axle
and keeping it in place,
there's a very good chance that that's what's causing
your death wobble as well.
So first thing I always like to do is when we're looking at,
at different causes to death wobble
is the track arm bushing.
Track arms are usually, besides the alignments,
probably the number one cause to death wobble.
So there's two different ways
to check these track arm bushings,
is one of them is when you have the weight off
of the suspension like we do now.
We have the Jeep suspended up in the air
and we have somebody go in and turn the steering wheel.
We can see if there's any play in here.
And then we just have somebody either the wheel,
grab the tire and turn the tire
to see if there's any loose play here or even shake the tire
to see if there's any loose play here.
We can also get a crowbar in here as well
and start moving that crowbar around
or the pry bar and see if there's any play
in any of these track arm bushings,
whether it's the lower track arm bushing
or the upper track arm bushing up here.
Or it could even be your tie rod bushings.
One thing to do is grab your drag link
and you can turn it like this.
Now on jail use, this is pretty common
to have just a little bit of play in there.
It's just built into here.
So when you turn the steering wheel,
it's not super tight and doesn't allow the steering to work.
But, so you're going to have a little bit of play in here,
but if it was super sloppy
and you could tell it was really loose,
then you know your bushings are shot on the drag link.
Same thing with the tie rod,
you're going to have just a little bit of play in there,
but if it was loose and it just didn't feel right,
then you'd know it was your tie rod bushing.
So definitely check those steering stabilizers.
Now there's a lot of misconception out there on the internet
that a steering stabilizer can fix your death wobble.
It may be a temporary solution to a permanent fix,
but don't rely on a new steering stabilizer
as the permanent fix to your death wobble,
'cause that's not the case.
We do have steering stabilizers on our website.
So if you do replace the bushings
and you found that that fixes the death wobble,
then go ahead and place the steering stabilizer as well
as that will reduce the amount of wear
that is going into your bushings.
As the steering stabilizer's designed to absorb
some of that impact
from some of those obstacles out in the trail.
So then if you check your track arm bushings,
you check your drag link bushings, tie rod bushings,
you notice that all of that is tight,
nothing is loose there,
the next thing they go to is your upper control arm bushings
and lower control arm bushings,
both on the axle side and on the frame side of the vehicle.
So after you've checked all of your bushings
underneath the Jeep, what we're going to do
is we're just gonna have somebody jump in there.
We're gonna have them turn the steering wheel
and just look to see if there is any more play
that we can't see from just being underneath the Jeep.
We're gonna do it with the weight off of the Jeep
like it is now,
and then we're gonna go ahead and lower the hoist,
and we're going to put the weight back on the suspension,
put the vehicle weight back on the axle,
and then we're also gonna do that again.
We're gonna have somebody turn the steering wheel for us
and just see if there is any play.
We like to check it both ways,
just because without the weight of the vehicle
on the suspension and somebody turns the steering wheel
to see if there's any play,
you may not notice that there's any movement
in any of the bushings,
but once we put that vehicle weight
down onto the suspension, onto the axle
and then turn the steering wheel,
it's going to apply a lot more pressure to the bushings.
And when we turn the steering wheel,
you might be able to see that play at that point.
So we're going to do it both ways up in the air
and down on the ground and to see if anything's loose.
(upbeat music)
All right, so now that we've checked everything
with the weight off of the suspension, off of the axle,
we're gonna go ahead and lower the Jeep
down back on the ground with the weight on the suspension,
the weight back on the axle.
And then we're going to go through it again.
And we're going to check all those bushings,
check the steering box,
check anything else that might be a little bit loose.
All right guys well after putting the weight
back on the suspension, back on the front axle
and scissoring the steering wheel,
everything on here seems to be nice and tight,
nice and buttoned up.
So we're not going to have any issues
with any kind of death wobble right now,
but it's something to keep an eye on.
Either preemptively, to do it occasionally,
maybe when you're doing an oil change
to just go through and check all your bushings and brackets
and everything else that's underneath the steering box,
all of that good stuff.
But make sure and let us know,
what do you guys all look for when diagnosing death wobble?
Is there something that we missed today
that you guys do that we don't?
Make sure and let us know in the comments below.
Also if you guys have experienced death wobble,
and have some sort of crazy story to tell about it,
definitely make sure and let us know that as well.
Other than that, if you liked today's video,
don't forget to hit that thumbs up
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make sure and hit that subscribe button.
As always guys, we appreciate all of you for watching
and all of your support.
I'm Josh from Trail Built
and we'll see you guys out on the trails.